Should you ever want to customize the content of the Computer Folder, then this is how:

1. Open Windows Explorer.
2. Click Organize | Folder and Search Options | View tab.
3. Check the box to show hidden files, folders and drives, and click OK.
4. Now navigate to this folder:
   %AppData%\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Network Shortcuts
5. Create or copy the shortcuts into this folder.

Open the Computer (Winkey+E) and you will see the added shortcuts and files. To group them together underneath Network Locations, set Explorer to sort by Type.

About Thomas

Computer geek from the age of 7, which amounts to 30 years of computer experience. From the early days (when every computer company had their own OS) of DOS, Windows 1.0 through Seven...

Last week, we shared some commands you can run (from the Run box/Start menu) that can save you time and get you to the tools you need quickly. If you missed it, here it is: Use Start Menu/Run Dialog Commands to Access Windows Programs and Tools.

This week, we’ll point you to some of our previously-written guides that include keyboard shortcuts that you can use in Windows and in a couple of popular programs. If we’re missing any shortcuts or programs with shortcuts, let us know in the comments.

• General Windows Shortcut Keys

• Shortcut Key Combinations that Use the Windows Key

• Microsoft Word Shortcut Keys

• Windows Photo Gallery Shortcut Keys

• Mozilla Firefox Shortcut Keys

What other shortcuts do you use?

About Rich

Rich is the owner and creator of Windows Guides; he spends his time breaking things on his PC so he can write how-to guides to fix the problems he creates.

If you like to use shortcuts to get tasks done in the most efficient way, there is a large collection of commands you can run from the run dialog (XP/Vista/7) or the Start Menu (in Windows Vista/7.) In this guide, I’ll show you how to run the commands and what effect they have.

Where to Run Commands

Note: see below for an even quicker method for Windows Vista/7.

To run the commands, listed below, in Windows XP (can also be used in Windows Vista/7):

1. Click the Start button and click Run (or press Winkey+R):

2. Type the command in the Run dialog and click OK (or press Enter.)

To run the commands, listed below, in Windows Vista/7, you can also use the Start Menu search function:

Press the Start button (or press the Winkey), type the command, and press Enter.

Environment Variables

Environment variables can be used to open common folders in Windows. You can even append strings to the end of an environment variable to go directly to a folder i.e. %UserProfile%\Music

Commands to Run

Most of the commands, listed below, will work; however, some commands such as QuickTime.cpl (requires Quick Time) or gpedit.msc (requires Business, Professional, or Ultimate Windows versions) may not run depending on installed components, Windows versions, Windows editions etc.

Which commands did I miss? Let us know in the comments.

About Rich

Rich is the owner and creator of Windows Guides; he spends his time breaking things on his PC so he can write how-to guides to fix the problems he creates.

Problems with hard disk space? Read this article by Brink on Seven Forums:

How to Free Up and Recover Hard Drive Space in Windows 7

Do you like controlling your system using shortcuts? Check this article by Justin Garrison on How To Geek:

20 Windows Keyboard Shortcuts You Might Not Know

Want to convert a bat file to an executable? Read this article by Michael Pietroforte on 4sysops.

Free BAT to EXE converter – 4 ways to convert a batch file to an EXE file

Have you lost your iPhone? Want to recover? Check this article by Dave Taylor on AskDaveTaylor.

How can I send a message to my lost iPhone?

About Angel Luis

I am an Engineer of Telecommunications that love computers. My first computer was a Commodore 16kb, about 25 years ago and since then I am always fighting computers problems. Please visit my entries and ask me about whatever problem you have, I will be pleased to help you. My email is discoveryourpc [at] gmail [dot] com. You can follow me on twitter @agenlu or read my blog www.discoveryourpc.net

Vishal over at AskVG has created eight registry hack packs that let you add the entries shown above (“Desktop Shortcuts”, “System Shortcuts”, “System Tools”, and “Windows Apps”) to either the desktop context menu or the My Computer context menu.

Each pack contains multiple registry files to let you choose the position of the menu on the context menu and an uninstall file to remove the menu completely. Here’s a list of the tutorials that contain the download files below:

• Add “Windows Apps” Cascading Menu in My Computer Context Menu in Windows 7
• Add “System Tools” Cascading Menu in My Computer Context Menu in Windows 7
• Add “System Shortcuts” Cascading Menu in My Computer Context Menu in Windows 7
• Add “Desktop Shortcuts” Cascading Menu in My Computer Context Menu in Windows 7
• Add “Windows Apps” Cascading Menu in Windows 7 Desktop Context Menu
• Add “System Tools” Cascading Menu in Windows 7 Desktop Context Menu
• Add “System Shortcuts” Cascading Menu in Windows 7 Desktop Context Menu
• Add “Desktop Shortcuts” Cascading Menu in Windows 7 Desktop Context Menu

About Rich

Rich is the owner and creator of Windows Guides; he spends his time breaking things on his PC so he can write how-to guides to fix the problems he creates.

After installing some software, an entry appears in your Send To Desktop context menu.

If you’ve a plethora of software installed on your system, this context menu can become cluttered and not as useful as intended my Microsoft.

This Quick Tip is going to show you how to tidy up your Send to menu.

Step 1.

Start by pressing the WinKey+E to open an Explorer window.

Step 2.

In the address bar type; shell:sendto and hit enter.

This is where all of your ‘Send To’ shortcuts are stored.

Step 3.

To remove any entry from the context menu (except the drives), simply delete the shortcuts (Skype, Bluetooth & Fax recipient in this example) from Explorer.

And that’s it!

(Respectively, you can add a shortcut to; for example, your Downloads folder.  Just right-click, drag & drop your shortcut into the shell:sendto folder and choose Create shortcuts here)

About Stu

The latest version of Microsoft Virtual PC lets you run applications installed on your virtual Windows XP Mode in Windows 7 without loading the whole operating system in the background. In this guide you’ll learn:

• How to turn on Auto Publish to view programs on Windows 7′s start menu.
• How to run Windows XP Mode applications in Windows 7.
• How to add XP Mode programs to Windows 7′s start menu.
• How to exclude XP Mode programs from Windows 7′s start menu.

Note: A few weeks ago, we asked you if you used Windows XP Mode and many of you responded by saying you didn’t know about it so we wrote this guide: What are Windows Virtual PC and Windows XP Mode and How Do I Use them? This is a good place to start if you’re new to Windows Virtual PC and Windows XP Mode.

If you get to the end of this guide and still have questions about Windows Virtual PC or XP Mode, please ask them in the Windows 7 forum.

How to Turn on Auto Publish to View Programs on Windows 7′s Start Menu

Auto Publish is an integration feature of Windows Virtual PC that adds the programs installed on the virtual machine to the host machine’s start menu. By default, this feature is enabled for Windows XP Mode, but to verify so you can follow the rest of the guide:

Click Tools > Settings… and click Auto Publish in the left-hand menu. Ensure Automatically publish virtual applications is checked.

If Auto Publish is not enabled:

1. Click Ctrl+Alt+Del (or press Ctrl+Alt+End.)

2. Click Shut Down…

3. Select Shut down and click OK.

4. After XP is shut down, in Windows 7, click the Start button, type virtual, and click Windows Virtual PC.

5. Right click Windows XP Mode and click Settings.

6. Click Auto Publish in the left-hand menu. Check Automatically publish virtual applications and click OK.

You can now start Windows XP Mode again.

How to Run Windows XP Mode Applications in Windows 7

For this example, I’ll use Office 95 (seems like a good candidate for use with Windows XP (although it will work in Windows 7), but for this guide we’ll pretend we had to use XP Mode to get it working :)

Once you install Microsoft Office 95, you’ll see the shortcuts appear on the XP Start menu…

…and on the Windows 7 host machine’s start menu.

This happens because any shortcuts for programs in the All Users folder are automatically put on Windows 7′s start menu. But what if a program doesn’t appear in the Start menu or programs appear that you don’t want in the start menu? Learn how to fix these potential issues below (How to Add XP Mode Programs to Windows 7′s Start Menu.)

If you click to open a program and have Windows XP Mode running, you’ll be asked to exit XP Mode. Click Continue.

The application will launch:

You’ll be able to work with the program seamlessly as if it were a Windows 7 application:

How to Add XP Mode Programs to Windows 7′s Start Menu

If you install a program in Windows XP Mode and it doesn’t show on Windows 7′s start menu (like it did in the example above):

1. Click the Windows XP Mode Start button, right click All Programs, and click Open all Users/Explore All Users.

2. Click the Windows XP Mode Start button, right click All Programs, and click Explore/Open.

3. Copy the shortcut, which you want to appear in Windows 7, from the folder opened in step 2 to the folder opened in step 1.

4. Now go to Windows 7 and verify the shortcut exists.

How to Exclude XP Mode Programs from Windows 7′s Start Menu

If you want certain programs excluded (or default programs, like the somewhat classic calculator, included) you’ll need to add/remove registry entries from the exclude list. If you are unfamiliar with registry editing, follow this guide and then come back.

Exclude a Program

To exclude a program:

1. Click the Windows XP Mode Start button, click All Programs, right click the shortcut you’d like to exclude click Properties.

2. Copy the Target field.

3. Open regedit and navigate to:

HLKM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Virtual Machine\VPCVAppExcludeList

4. Right click in a blank space and click New > String Value. Give the string a name (the application name e.g. Binder.exe)

5. Double click the newly-created String Value and paste the shortcut to the file (include quotes if there’s a space in the file/folder name.)

Include an Excluded a Program

If you want to include an excluded program like Windows XP Calculator:

1. Open regedit and navigate to:

HLKM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Virtual Machine\VPCVAppExcludeList

2. Right click the program you’d like to include and click Delete.

The program will now be available for use.

There you have it: the basics of Windows Virtual PC Auto Publishing.

About Rich

Rich is the owner and creator of Windows Guides; he spends his time breaking things on his PC so he can write how-to guides to fix the problems he creates.

But what if you search a specific site and do so frequently?  Instead of searching for “Mintywhite” and then clicking the images tab on google.com for example, we can assign Google Images its own keyword.

To do so, right click in Chrome’s address bar and click Edit search engines…

Here you will see all of your search engines and their keywords.

In this example i will use Google Images.

Click the Add… button on the right side.

Give your shortcut a name (I’ll use Images), assign it’s keyword (pics) and now head over to Google Images and search for mintywhite.  Copy the URL and paste it into the URL field of the Add search engine box.  Look for mintywhite in this address and replace it with %s.

You can use this method for any search engine you wish!  Respectively, if you want to edit any existing search engines, go ahead and select the engine from the list, click Edit… and modify in the same manner as above.

Now, when you want to search Google Images for anything, just type pics and press the Tab button on your keyboard and it will set the search bar to specifically search Google Images.

A great timesaver I think.

About Stu

I chose these media players with the following requirements in mind:

• The media player should play most file types out of the box.
• The media player should be free and not include adware, spyware etc.
• The media players should work on all recent versions of Windows (XP, Vista, and 7.)

Windows Media Player 12

Windows Media Player 12 comes bundled with Windows 7 (so it’s pretty much free after you purchase your Windows 7 license–let’s just call it free) and is, in my opinion an excellent media player that packs the following features:

• Plays all kinds of file types—including 3GP, AAC, AVCHD, MPEG-4, WMV, and WMA. It also supports most AVI, DivX, MOV, and Xvid files.
• The new Play To feature streams music and video to other PCs running Windows 7 or compatible devices around the home. With Remote Media Streaming, you can enjoy music or videos on your home PC from the road.
• The new Now Playing mode is a study in minimalism: It shows only the controls you need, so nothing comes between you and your music or video.
• Features smarter DVD playback, 15-second song previews, Jump Lists for fast access to favorite media.

I don’t use Windows Media Player, but I still think it’s a great program. Hopefully it’s featured in future versions of Windows and there’s no antitrust suit against it (IE8 ring any bells?)

Useful Windows Media Player links:

• Download Windows Media Player 12
• Download older versions on Windows Media Player
• Windows Media Player FAQ

Media Player Classic

If you’re looking for a program that plays all kinds of files, uses low system resources, and doesn’t try to impress you with visual effects, you should try Media Player Classic. Much like VLC (see below), this player plays most video files and it runs on almost any hardware without slowdown (of course depending on the encoding of the media.)

Some features of Media Player Classic:

• Supports the following filetypes: WAV, WMA, MP3, OGG, SND, AU, AIF, AIFC, AIFF, MIDI, MPEG, MPG, MP2, VOB, AC3, DTS, ASX, M3U, PLS, WAX, ASF, WM, WMA, WMV, AVI, CDA, JPEG, JPG, GIF, PNG, BMP, D2V, MP4, SWF, MOV, QT, FLV.
• Support for EVR (Enhanced Video Renderer.)
• Supports Subtitles.
• Playback and recording of television if a supported TV tuner is installed.
• Supports Multi-Monitor configuration.

Download Media Player Classic

VLC Player

VLC Player is my media player of choice (other than for my media center, which I use Windows Media Center–which I didn’t include because it doesn’t come with all versions of Windows.)

Here’s some features I really like about VLC:

• The software is regularly updated.
• VLC is free of bloat, it loads quickly, and plays almost every file type I throw at it.
• Subtitles and alternate language files are supported (so I can have Macedonian subtitles and Afrikaans audio… of course!)
• I can use VLC to record an instream from my desktop or webcam (great for screen-casting and surveillance.)
• Did I mention it’s completely free?

Download VLC Player

Zune Software

I don’t own a Zune; I’d like one though! You don’t need to own a Zune to use this great software. Here’s some marketing jazz:

• Quickplay – Get instant access to the stuff you care about most with shortcuts to favorites, recently downloaded or played music, videos, and more.
• Smart DJ – From any artist, album, or song, Smart DJ will generate a related playlist from the music on your computer and new music from Zune Marketplace.
• Mini Mode – Putting the Zune software into mini mode while listening to music allows you to use your other programs while continuing to see what’s playing.
• Mixview – Launch into Mixview from any artist or album and discover a mosaic of connections to other artists, albums, and fans.

Everyone I’ve spoke to that uses this software (that’s three people!) really like this program and highly recommend it.

Download Zune Software

iTunes

Well, it made it to the list. Yeah, this program isn’t anything new but then again, neither are the previous programs I listed! iTunes is a very popular program and I (begrudgingly) use it frequently. As I use an iPhone and am still trying to find a good iTunes alternative, this program does the job. Here are some of the features I (really) like:

• Easy home network sharing between PCs.
• A free Remote App for the iPhone/iPod touch that lets you control playback remotely.
• Genius playlists that send your (hopefully legitimate) collection information to Apple and use this information to make Genre-based playlists and new music recommendations.
• The ability to separate Audiobooks (now called Books in the latest version of the software.)
• A clean easy to use interface.

The things I like least about iTunes is the huge install size, added services, and slow operation. Other than that, this is a solid media player.

Download iTunes

What did I miss? Which programs do use use to play your media? Let us know in the comments.

About Rich

Rich is the owner and creator of Windows Guides; he spends his time breaking things on his PC so he can write how-to guides to fix the problems he creates.

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About Stu